North Korea - Last days

Here is, finally, the final installment of my North Korean trip.

We visited a museum!
A museum on war crimes committed by the US and others during the Korean War...
Fun.

While I have no doubt many atrocities happened, some of this stuff was over-the-top.
Dropping grenades in th air vents of bunkers to pull the people inside... Its dirty, but that's why war sucks, and something tells me that were the positions reversed, they might have done the same.

However, the eviscerating of a pregnant woman, "just because", or forcing a whole village to drink gasoline then pour it on the survivors and burn them seems rather implausible, if only because of the unnecessarily roundabout way of going about killing people in cruel and unusual ways, but also because of the purported wasting of precious resources (fuel) that far into enemy territory.

That being said, many of the less extravagant atrocities seem plausible,and even the more far-fetched ones are probably rooted in factual events, but the depictions too often take on a patriotic-martyr-like twist or are just too incongruous to be able to be taken seriously as-is. Added to this are the painted renderings of some of the stories, replete with sadistic american soldiers torturing poor Korean women.

By killing them in various ways by tying them to running bulls via hooks in their breats, or by driging tails through their heads.

After the tour of museum proper, with explanations given by a very "passionate" museum tour guide (I guess she is "paid" for being, or at least sounding,  fanatical), we went to offer flowers to a mass grave, and sign a guestbook.

Whether or not we believe that some stories were embellished or not, there is no denying atrocities were committed during wartime, but the most depressing fact to me was that atrocities like those described are done by people who have lost part of their humanity because of hate...And the whole museum show is tailored to shock and incite North Koreans to hate at the evil invaders, basically reinforcing the cycle of hate and abuse.

They make a big case of some of the war leaders like Harisson, whose hate of communists led him to order killings bordering on genocide, and vilify him, inciting feelings of fear and ate all the time conveniently forgetting that hate and fear is what made him that way. Its like the museum,s goal is to take Harisson's example as a reason to create more monsters like Harisson.

Can't really write that in the guestbook though, so I had to be a bit more creative.

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After all that we headed to a nice little countryside cabin/hotel that had its very own hot springs!

..I love hot springs!
While i was not expecting the kind of gargantuan jimjilbang that i experiences in Seoul (like 5 floors of spa goodness!) or of the charm of Japanese onsen (rotenburo in winter > all), I was still slightly unfazed by the small tub in the bathroom that we could fill with hot spring water from 8 to 10pm.

It was still real spring water, and, to be fair, probably one of the only places in North Korea with hot springs, electricity and food, all in one place.
I think I soaked for the better part of 2 hours.

The rooms were comfortable, and in cottage-style fashion (every cottage having 4 rooms). The forest around there was pretty and I wish I had had more time to walk about it.
There was also a concession stand near the cafeteria and I bought a bunch of belgian/german chocolate, very cheap and brand name!

Chocolate and hot springs in North Korea... Its easy to forget about all the people starving or in work camps...

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After the nice Nampo hotel, we went to visit a "farm".
It was like this model farm proposed by Kim Il Sung.
Well.. It was in this nice little house, with perfect furniture, and and perfect kitchen set.
The grandmother was at home with her grandson, the parents probably outside, working "the fields".
It was kind of surreal, since we didn't see any fields around the house...
But it was a very nice house.
I asked the kid to pose with Spike, and there was a misunderstanding and he thought I was giving Spike to him... Luckily I am good with kids and managed to bewilder him, get Spike back, and have him wave happily bye-bye to Spike as we were leaving.
Like a boss.

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Afterwards, we went to visit a water bottling factory.

At this point, I was starting to wonder if we had run out of fun and educational sites to visit...
I mean, a water bottling factory, we have those back home, right?

The factory was clean and used some Italy-imported bottling machines.
We even got to see the spring and were explained how the water was gathered and carbonized.
It shows that, when political approval and support is forthcoming, industry can "thrive".

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Well, just as I thought the interesting part of the trip was over.. We headed to Kumsusan Memorial Palace of the Sun, the most sacred place in all North Korea, where the bodies of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung are displayed and preserved.

This is one of the most difficult places to visit (excluding the work camps, anything army-related, most of the countryside and basically anywhere in North Korea not meant for foreigners to see).

No photos were allowed inside.

After a thorough check, we were allowed in the building, through a very long  conveyor belt/escalator ride with pictures depicting the two leaders' lives and accomplishments. Once inside the building, we were treated to a series of rooms where we could see all the medals and prized won or offered to the Great Leaders in their lifetime.

The architecture of place was also breathtaking. Huge marble columns and floors, and gold crystal chandeliers. The kind of extravagance you see in the Louvres.

The center of the show is, of course, the preserved bodies of the two leaders in their glass boxes, under constant guard. We had to come in in groups of five, bow one three times, from different sides, then move to the next room and repeat the process. This is where North Koreans would supposedly cry and wail, but the group before us was rather tame.

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That day, we went to.. An Italian restaurant.
Apparently one of the higher-up friend of the Kims, after a successful career as diplomat, decided to start an Italian restaurant back home.

We actually met with a pair of Egyptians who were working on an IT project in north Korea. one of them was even browsing Facebook from his iPad. I guess working for the government has its perks.

The food was really good, too!

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The next even was the Grand People's Study House, the Pyongyang public library.
Again, as with the Palace, a huge building, with an amazing marble entrance and grandiose rooms.
When the Kims order something done, they order it in Style!

There are public rooms for free-viewing books, reading rooms, media rooms, music rooms, etc.
The place was reasonably crowded, but seeing as we had to wait 40 minutes outside the doors before they let us in, I suspect they had to turn on many of the computers and find people to man the seats of the library in order for it to be "presentable" before they let us in.

They had a nifty computer search engine, and many foreign books.
I could not find 1984 though.

On the top floor is a gift shop, where one can find nice picture books and a slew of Kim-derived products, like "Anecdotes from the live of Kim Jong Il" and "The Kim Il Sung Saga in 12 tomes".
The anecdotes were surprisingly similar to stuff you find in every other religion; stories about him helping his fellow man in strange, yet deep ways, or semi-supernatural stuff happening around him in his life signaling someone as being more than simply human, etc...

The view form the roof was also quite good.

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The last part of the activity for me was the school visit.
I was really looking forward to being able to visit a school and see students, and all that jazz, but ended being disappointed.

Just before we arrived, they hid all the students, so we got to see a couple of empty classes and science labs.

We were then ushered into the school theater where a score of kids did a concert for us, with instruments and dancing and whatnot.

Needless to say they had obviously been trained hard for this show and had given it countless times. The girls had these heavily painted faces frozen in a picture of joy that was slightly disturbing in their uniformity. When they sung, their posture were all identical, down to the knee-bending movement in tune to the music.

At the very end, they invited everyone in and made a dancing circle and seemed almost natural, but something was still off...

At the very end, when everyone was posing for photos,on a whim and in a last desperate attempt to elicit some kind of spontaneous response, I tried throwing Spike to them, to maybe see surprise, curiosity; something...
But spike was thrown, and they just kept smiling for the cameras and ignored him.

Needless to say this was not what I had in mind when I was told "school visit".
Seeing a score of highly trained kids put up a show, does not a school make.
This is my purely Western-centric view, of course.

After the school visit I started feeling unwell, and bailed out for the rest of the day.
At first i thought it might be the letdown I felt from the school trip bumming me out, but it turns out I had a fever and by the time we made it to the hotel i was genuinely feeling queasy.

Since everyone needs tour guides, a pair of ladies were called in to watch over me, as I rested in my hotel room. they were very thorough, calling me every 30 minutes to see if I was still OK.
Needless to say, i couldn't get much sleep.

At least I had brought some anti-fever medicine from home, so i took them.

By the time the group came back for dinner, I was feeling a bit better and grabbed a bite with them.

The next morning, we packed our bags, and left for China by train.
This time, the locomotive didn't catch on fire.

As we were crossing the bridge into China, I couldn't help myself from being ironic, and thought out-loud "Ah, back to a free and democratic country: China".

Well, free and democratic compared to North Korea, anyways.

Next up: My days in China

おまけ: North Korean Traffic Ladies!